You are talking about a skybox with 6 different sides that correspond to the actual astronomical views one would see from that angle so that it actually looks realistic, right? I haven't seen it but that one image repeated and wrapped around the view seems like it would look rather boring, which is probably why you want to change it.

I'll take a look through some astronomy and starchart websites and see if I can find anything useful or even information that could guide an artist to easily create the needed images.

You are talking about a skybox with 6 different sides that correspond to the actual astronomical views one would see from that angle so that it actually looks realistic, right? I haven't seen it but that one image repeated and wrapped around the view seems like it would look rather boring, which is probably why you want to change it.

I'll take a look through some astronomy and starchart websites and see if I can find anything useful or even information that could guide an artist to easily create the needed images.

That would be crazy! you could even get the starfield to rotate based on the time of year!

Don't the rotate commands just rotate the globe itself or do they rotate the camera around the globe?

if they do the former then there is no need for this, the latter then all we need is a projection of the celestial sphere into the skybox with maybe a few of the more recognizable constellations in there.

as for cool little things like the stars moving with time and stuff like this, lets not loose focus here we are not making a scientific starfield simulation. I beleive this kind of thing will just add to the burden programming has for no reason. Maybe once the game is finsihed we can talk about adding tweaks like this but right now I'd just be happy to have a working planetview.

Vaaish is right, I just wanted skybox to put into background of Globe, just to make it looking good. I won't implement rotating skybox now becouse it would get things complicated and I really like to keep things as simple as they can be (it's easier to extend simple thing than to refactor complicated). I'm aiming at Alpha 6 with that skybox.

Btw, the Globe will stay static in the middle of the scene, just the sunlight and camera will orbit around globe. So having nice skybox in background of globe will give it more 3D feeling than having static texture.

Guyver

Sourceforge: guyver6LinkedIn: Andrzej Haczewski"A good business idea, they say, can be explained in one sentence. Similarly, each program entity should have one clear purpose."

I've made an inverted sphere as envorioment. Heres a movie with it, stars moving and all. It's all still with no movement (this would be about 1 hour), and you can clearly see what i mean by motion sickness. AND THIS IS WITHOUT MOTION AT ALL.

Grrrrrr, stupid thing won't upload. It ruins the movie when i try to upload it.

Edited by mikker, 21 December 2004 - 06:19 PM.

Some people say that dreams are a portal to the subconscious. If that is so, I am a very disturbed person.

Maybe I'll just compile current code for you and upload it somewhere, to show you how skybox really looks cool and doesn't give any sickness. This is I think that the background is really not much visible, becouse globe fills first plan, and the skybox is really cool looking... IMHO of course.

Guyver

Sourceforge: guyver6LinkedIn: Andrzej Haczewski"A good business idea, they say, can be explained in one sentence. Similarly, each program entity should have one clear purpose."

As to skybox it's the quality of it that makes or makes not the sickness . But that way or another having skybox and rejecting it becouse of unpleasant feelings while looking at globe is the choice we don't have when rejecting the idea before seeing it in action.

Guyver

EDIT: more links

Edited by guyver6, 24 December 2004 - 03:07 AM.

Sourceforge: guyver6LinkedIn: Andrzej Haczewski"A good business idea, they say, can be explained in one sentence. Similarly, each program entity should have one clear purpose."

Oh dear!!! I didn't mean that the skybox isn't good. I haven't seen it becouse can't play the movie (and I can't tell why, what codec is this?). I just wanted to convince you that skybox looks better than static background. Could you make a skybox from what's on movie to let me see it? And again sorry, I didn't mean the quality of what's on movie

Guyver

Sourceforge: guyver6LinkedIn: Andrzej Haczewski"A good business idea, they say, can be explained in one sentence. Similarly, each program entity should have one clear purpose."

First of all too many stars. Second: no nebulas, colors, etc., pure black and white looks not that interesting. Third: one texture, we need six (6) textures to make a skybox. Check out the gamasutra link I posted above.

All those make up not so interesting background when applied behind globe (I tested in with Xenocide). Anyway if come up with nice background (not skybox), then I'll set that background not the skybox. Either way the current one is too low-res.

Guyver

Sourceforge: guyver6LinkedIn: Andrzej Haczewski"A good business idea, they say, can be explained in one sentence. Similarly, each program entity should have one clear purpose."

@Vaaish: I've implemented that projection becouse I want Earth to look pretty. It won't look that pretty with simple spherical projection applied, it will have disorted poles, then we can't use big texture, and texturing using spherical projection you have to have one texture (well, you can have more than that but it's not looking any good, the texels get more disorted the closer of pole their lie). That's why I'm implementing Fuller's idea.
And yes, this will couse that Earth will be very realistic. But it's a game, good look is more than realism here, and nice nebula makes it look better. If I want to see Earth with realistic neighbourhood then I run Celestia. If I want to fight aliens, then I run Xenocide. You know

Now my proposition is to end that discussion and make that damn nice looking background, is it skybox or plane behind globe. I proposed skybox, mikker says that it makes him sick. Now I say just "do it" (Starsky rulez ). Ok?

Btw sun, it's possible and I'll think of how to do it after globe.

Guyver

Sourceforge: guyver6LinkedIn: Andrzej Haczewski"A good business idea, they say, can be explained in one sentence. Similarly, each program entity should have one clear purpose."

@guyver. I'm not sure what your first paragraph had to do with my comment. IIRC I was only refering to the skybox not the actual globe.

As for the skybox, all i'm saying is that we don't necessarily need a nebula to make it look pretty. Adding in the sun and moon and maybe using a deeper blue/black instead of solid black and adding some variation to the star colors to represent the various sizes and colors of the stars can also be effective and keep things more realistic. My belief is that we need to keep the skybox more subtle so that the players attention is focused on the globe.

I concur absolutly with what Guyver said, if I want to see the local airspace there are pretty good simulators out there. In games almost every time you do concessions about the accuracy of the simulation for aesthetical reasons. This is a justified one.

If not ask HL2 guys, if they would just have a physical simulation done just for the sake of accuracy they would have been wasting time, they gave a very important twist adding puzzles that use the simulation and breaking things. Ask Microprose guys why they have done the first XCOM background such amazingly unrealistic. Someone said, it wasnt the real thing, NO, that is because it is really pretty.

I hope I make the point clear, realistic is not always real .. In that I have to praise the CTD work, even if they managed to make things look realistic they do not conform to reality (at all). This is an example of the very same principle. We want stars because that gives a sense of realistic but we want things that make the background pretty to be looked at, not just a boring black and white starfield.

@guyver. I'm not sure what your first paragraph had to do with my comment. IIRC I was only refering to the skybox not the actual globe.

As for the skybox, all i'm saying is that we don't necessarily need a nebula to make it look pretty. Adding in the sun and moon and maybe using a deeper blue/black instead of solid black and adding some variation to the star colors to represent the various sizes and colors of the stars can also be effective and keep things more realistic. My belief is that we need to keep the skybox more subtle so that the players attention is focused on the globe.

Vaaish: Adding the sun isnt really more subtle, as the direct lighting on the camera would cause blindness ("lense flares and stuff like that"), add to that that most of the time we would use the 24 hours a second timeframe and the twinkling that would add wouldnt be pleasant at all. The point is make the background pretty, while not focussing the players attention in it, however if the player looks at it he can appreciate it. Almost nobody would see interesting stars (maybe a couple of guys) out there, for the simple reason that most of the space is behind the globe (80% of the screen).. So adding real positions and that stuff is just a waste of very limited resources. If after that someone would really need to do it (instead of help in another thing), so be it. However, he will have to compete to a pretty skybox. Real backround is completly out of scope.

EDIT: Furthermore I even speculated to add planet atmospheric scattering (that looks awesome), however, I desisted because that would distract anyone out of the purpose of the interface in the game.

Have you checked skybox tutorial I've posted above? (That on gamasutra) Cuz that texture looks ok except skybox needs 6 of them (box has 6 sides). Another question is: where are nebulas?

Guyver

EDIT: small quote from gamasutra:

Your existing 3D modeling software is a great source of skyboxes. You can use weather, mountain, or star-field generation plugins to create most of the scenery, along with the modeling and texturing tools with which you are already familiar.

To create a skybox, render six images of the scene from a single point in space. Set the camera to create square images with a vertical and horizontal field-of-view of 90°. Then render six views, each 90° apart: forward, left, back, right, up and down.

The resulting images should fit together seamlessly when placed next to each other in Photoshop or viewed with the game engine. If they don't, you might be able to swap and rotate some of the six images to get the arrangement required by your game engine, or you might have to change the camera parameters and re-render.

Edited by guyver6, 30 December 2004 - 09:44 AM.

Sourceforge: guyver6LinkedIn: Andrzej Haczewski"A good business idea, they say, can be explained in one sentence. Similarly, each program entity should have one clear purpose."

I figured that I'd add my two cents about this issue. What I'm about to propose may not be a Version 1.0 issue, but I thought I'd say it anyway. On one of the skybox sides, we should make a brighter "star", Mars. Mars, venus, saturn and the other planets look like brighter stars when viewed from earth. As an amateur astronomer, trust me I know. I can't tell you how many times I've had to point out to someone that the star they are commmenting on is Venus or Mars. We could even do a sequence when the player launches their "Cydonia or Bust" mission where the camera zooms in on that "star" in the background and it resolves into mars' red surface. I know that we already have some great CG for the endgame sequence, I'm just suggesting rotating the skybox when the player launches the mission and doing a small zoom before cutting to the CG. Even without the "Cydonia or Bust" zoom graphic idea, I still think that there should be a couple of slightly brighter "stars" to represent the planets.

And hey, what about recognizable constellations? I mean, if wer're going to do a skybox, why not do it right? Once again, I know this might not be a Ver 1.0 issue, but I thought I would mention it anyway.

<span style='color:red'>More fun than a barrel of psychotic chickens.</span>